12 more days

I cannot believe that I can now say that I have less then two weeks before this sojourn comes to an end. Who could imagine that a year and two weeks could go so quickly?! As I type Norbert is fast asleep in OUR BED in Long Beach! I am very jealous. He arrived last night. Today he’ll begin the strange task of becoming familiar with the familiar. I am here 12 more days and then I will end my fellowship a week early, in order to give myself a week to get my head on straight before the semester begins. Although I wonder if it will take longer than that!

Our time in Chawton has been quite wonderful really. It was relatively uneventful, as we spent most days in the reading room, and most evenings around the table in the conservatory or reading in the cozy stables. There were a string of fellows and visitors to cook with and get to know, and we simply enjoyed working in these peaceful surroundings. We went to London a few times to work at the British Library, meet up with friends and play a bit in the city. Here are a couple pictures from those visits.


Here's a picture of us at the Princess Diana Memorial in Hyde Park. Lots of people thought dipping their toes in this cold water was a good idea on this quite muggy London day!


And we did a wonderful walk (21 miles!) last Saturday from our doorstep across the Hampshire countryside to the quaint town of Winchester, where we stayed in a B&B and celebrated the end to this fascinating globetrot. Here are a couple pictures from our amble.




For those of you in Long Beach, I am ridiculously excited to see you! And for those of you elsewhere, I look forward to keeping in touch and seeing you—maybe in LB! While we are swearing that we will never leave Long Beach again, you’d be wise to catch us there before we hatch another crazy plan!

Now Settled @ Chawton

Greetings from the lush green woodlands of Hampshire, England. What a contrast! I write from the gorgeously renovated horse stables that now resemble a large country cottage. In fact, I’ve updated the header of the blog with a photo of the Chawton estate, so you get a sense of just what a change this is from Delhi! The 16th-century manor house at the end of the driveway was owned by Jane Austen’s brother. And the stables, where I live with another fellow, Natasha (see below), and varied guests who come and go, are on the left. In 1993 this estate was purchased by one of the founders of Cisco systems and has been meticulously restored. Today the main function of the estate is to support the research of women’s writing from 1600-1830. Imagine shire horses on one side of the driveway and lots of romping sheep and their newborns lambs on the other, and you’ve got a pretty good picture of my present surroundings. I regularly hear the bleating of lambs even when the windows are closed! If you are still interested in all that is happening here, check out the website at www.chawton.org.

I’ve been here now for nearly three weeks and on Monday Norbert will join me. His fellowship in Delhi ended on May 31 and mine began on June 1, so it didn’t work out for me to get to Germany this summer. It’s not ideal, as I always enjoy our visits, but it has been nice to settle in here and get back to a calm and rhythm quite similar to the one I had in Delhi.

However, I certainly had some culture shock coming to such a bucolic part of the world directly from dry and intense Delhi. I don’t even know how to talk about these differences—since Delhi is a massive developing city—facing intense floods of migration from the drought zones around it periphery. It’s full of both perfectly satisfied people—both materially and physically—and people who long for a glass of water and a cup of lentils each day and who feel lucky to find a bucket of water so they can bath on the side of the road. This contrasting reality is both utterly intense and perfectly normal. But now all of the sudden I am not there, and the wet, green landscape certainly feels more familiar. The aristocratic feeling, however, does not. Many of the towns in this area are postcard perfect images of your best visions of England, with cute High Streets and tea shops and renovated gourmet gastropubs. So, what can I say, I am not really surprised by this contrast—we all know it exists. But I do pause. I now sleep on a splendid mattress with crisp white sheets and a fluffy comforter and my shower is brand new with those faux old fashioned, Parisian-looking faucets…and best of all….hot water comes out of it! Everyone in the world should get to live like this.



I am spending my days again back to work. Now each morning instead of going to my desk in the corner of the studio apartment, I walk across the lawn and up the driveway to that big wooden door at the end of the driveway, where I punch in a secret code and am granted entry to this 50-room hunk of history. From most rooms I am watched by a camera. I work either in the primary reading room with just one or two other scholars, or if I really need to concentrate, I have a desk in “the maid’s sitting room” near a window, where I can leave papers and spread out a bit more. As I describe it I realize that in fact my work environment does not feel as different as it probably sounds. I do really like being around other people who care about these women I have also submerged myself in, and that is in itself inspiring. But in my head I don’t necessarily feel that it’s all that different. What I am realizing is that ideally to get this kind of work done one just needs a very lightly scheduled life and a quiet, undisturbed space. Both are usually so very hard to find, and it is quite nice to be able to find these in such deeply contrasting parts of the world.

Here I do not feel quite the urgency to write about my experiences…as they are so much closer to your own. People wear the clothes we are used to, eat the same food, share the same rules of politeness, and speak the same language (well, almost ;-)!). It’s pretty ho-hum around here…a sort of Ground Hog day of sorts, since each day at 9am I cross the lawn... and at 5pm I cross it going the other way and set up for another hour or so of work in the stables. Whoever is there at the time takes turns making dinner, and we sit around in the lovely conservatory and chat over nice food.



Here is the kitchen and attached conservatory, when it's silent.














I’ve gone into London once, to see a couple friends (what a wonderful thing to see a couple familiar faces after 5 months!) and visit an exhibit on women intellectuals of the 18th century at the National Portrait Gallery. But that sounds fairly bland in light of India. So I’ll see if I can come up with something really interesting to say for future blogs. I will likely force myself, since I cling to the hope that posting might just prompt you to send me a few lines. You can also tell me what I should talk about in future blogs!


Here's a picture of me with the other fellow who lives with me, from Canada, Natasha. We're not sure if this church influenced Jane's Northanger Abbey...but we like to think so!

Saying Goodbye

This week has been full of goodbyes—a meal or two each day with friends—, mailing, giving away, packing, and organizing for the next leg of our trip. Norbert’s fellowship ends now and on Sunday, June 1, we fly—8:15am—from Delhi to Heathrow. Where sadly we will part ways for 3 weeks. I will get a cab and head south to the county of Hampshire, to Chawton House Library in Alton, where my fellowship begins. And Norbert will head to Germany to visit family and friends. It’s in fact boring to say how amazing it is that time flies…but again we face the reality.


Our five months in Delhi have been incredibly interesting, restful and, if you can believe it, productive. Not knowing many people and being a bit out of the way, turned out to be a very good thing. We got to know the city and several wonderful people, but we also got to remind ourselves what not rushing around feels like. India is a good place to learn this, as we have discovered that one can only do one or two things a day. What a healthy thing to try! I will also miss the gorgeous mangos that just came in season about two weeks ago and the lychees that have just arrived, the fascinating history that quietly sits among the chaos, and the people we’ve met who have made our stay quite memorable. We feel very lucky to have been here and certainly in some ways changed by the experience…though it may take awhile for us to realize the subtleties of that change.


It’s funny to sit here in this apartment now that it feels like home. I still remember our first day here, when we looked around and wondered how we would make it work. The dust and starkness took some getting used to, and we were slightly nervous to venture. And for awhile I did not go out on my own at all, since there were warnings that women should not travel alone here. But now we are living among our own untended dust, the place feels like home, and we get around with ease. I’ve gotten completely comfortable taking rickshaws during the day in places that I know, and lately we've been talking almost every day about the next time...what we'll do and who we'll see..and how it will feel so familiar!

The Himalayas

May 13-20
We took a break from the heat of Delhi-115 most days--and headed north. Himachal Pradesh is a region north of Delhi in the Himalayas. It’s quite different from what I think most people imagine of India—as it’s cool and green, and perhaps half the people who live in this region look more like they are from Tibet. We were looking forward to being in mountains and hiking, and this is exactly what we got. In both of our first two stops (Sarahan and Kalpa) we had amazing views of the snow-covered mountains from our hotel windows, and the hiking was great fun, though hard and breath-taking--in the thin air sort of way, as well as the gorgeous view sort of way.

At the second stop, Kalpa, our hotel was at about 9,000 feet, and across the valley were snow covered, craggy mountains that seemed close enough that you could reach out and touch! From there we hiked (straight up), chatting with shepherds (our guide as interpreter), whose little lambs came right up to us, drank from the source of this area’s ice cold water supply and eventually made it up to 12,000 feet, where in fact we were able to touch, throw, and lie in snow! That was a highlight. Coming down was not however, as our guide had forgotten that we were from the flatlands and took us on a “short-cut”—note to self, never take a short cut down a mountain! It was way too steep for us (though our guide skipped down with an 8-foot log, that he would use for firewood, on his shoulder). So we ended up doing a lot sliding and falling. Still, after recovering and then feeling incredibly lucky that we really didn’t hurt ourselves, we thought it was an absolutely amazing experience. Those views were second to none!

Overall these days away from the city, meeting people who have spent their lives living on a 60-70 degree grade was fascinating. Our guide weaves shawls in the winter and tends a large apple orchard in the summer. The area is thriving, as we saw a wide variety of agriculture and well stocked markets in every town. People seemed more friendly overall and were not so surprised by westerners. And it was interesting to see how Indian dress is adapted for the mountains, including this very popular hat, with green felt flap, that is worn by men and women, young and old.



Our last stop was Shimla, which required retracing our drive, down the mountain this time, to about 6,500 feet. Shimla became a destination in the 19th century for the British who needed to escape the summer heat of Delhi. It’s a typical mountain town, which has grown as Indian tourism has significantly increased. There were two highlights for us in this popular town: first the quiet, and pretty clean, pedestrian zone (unlike anything we have seen in India), and second the former British Viceroy’s Residence, which has been turned into the Indian Advanced Study Center. It’s a huge gorgeous building with great views, at the very far end of this pedestrian zone. All in all, this was an excellent trip, as we got to see an entirely different face of India.

Friends

Another thing that we will miss are the people we’ve become friends with. They’ve been very kind to us and helped us get to know various aspects of the city. On the day Indivar took us to the flower market early in the morning, he also took us a Sikh temple, where we were really impressed by the numbers of people who came on a regular weekday morning and looked like they were on their way to work. Sikh temples are known for the large number of members who volunteer to do service at the temple on a regular basis. All of the shoe collectors (you have take off your shoes and wash your hands and feet) before entering the temple) and those who keep the steps clean are regular members of the temple. The young woman who did this on the day we visited was wearing pants and a shirt—surprising to us, since most traditional young women wear salwar kameez or saris. They are also committed to feeding whoever comes and expect nothing in return.

We’ve also spent more time with Shubra and Kunal. Here’s (finally) a picture of Shubra on a night when she invited us to her music school performance. She goes every Wednesday night and sings Tagore lyrics with a large group of other professional adults who also do this as a way to relax. All around the music hall—at the entrance and down the hallway were these intricate sand drawings. This one is of Tagore himself.

More on yoga

It is beginning to sink in that our time here in India is soon going to be over. So I’ve taken pictures of things that I don’t want to forget. One of these is my yoga class. I’ve gone about 3 mornings a week, and it has been a wonderful way to start the day. Now that I’ve been going for awhile, I finally got up the nerve to ask the instructors if I could take a picture of them—they both happened to be sitting on the platform on which they instruct from individually—you never know which of them will be your teacher each morning. I like both of them. You can see that one is dressed more traditionally in white and the other is dressed as if he’s on his way to work. I don’t know if he goes from here to another job, but that’s how I imagine it. The guy in white rides to class on a motorcycle, and one day I was running (literally) late, and he pulled up beside me and offered me a ride. He has been studying yoga since he was very young, as his father practices. I mentioned this to Yogesh after class, and he said that his father also practices yoga. “And his mother?” I ask. “No, she’s got work to do around the house.”

Staying In

The temperatures are now up around 111 most days. 115 was the high last week, and the dust storms have been like nothing I've experienced before--imagine sideways sheets of dust! So we have found ourselves staying in more. We are so lucky to have AC and a good working space, and we are trying to wrap up projects before we head to the Himalayas this coming Tuesday. We’ve heard that this is a common practice for Delhiwallas looking to escape the heat. So on Tuesday night we’ll board a mini-bus for an overnight trip up to Shimla. Our plan is to be in the mountains for 6 days, hiking and smelling the pine air. When we get back, there will only be 10 days left before we fly away. Amazing how time flies.

I attach here a picture of my desk at the window, where I have been working all semester, and another bouquet of flowers that certainly perked up the room a bit. It’s been so nice to work here and look out at the bush forest. The flowers were the first that have graced our place (something I really miss from CA). We got them at a flower market Indivar introduced us to. The toaster sits here because there aren't enough outlets in the kitchen. It actually turns out to be convenient, since we eat at the table with the purple flowers. I also thought I’d share my best lizard picture, it’s gotten so hot that even the lizards are slowing down.